Andrew MalcolmPolitical News & Commentary

Address by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a Joint Meeting of Congress

Thank you. (APPLAUSE)

Speaker
of the House John Boehner, President Pro Tem Senator Orrin Hatch,
Senator Minority -- Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. I also
want to acknowledge Senator, Democratic Leader Harry Reid. Harry, it's
good to see you back on your feet. (APPLAUSE)

I guess it's true what they say, you can't keep a good man down. (LAUGHTER)

My
friends, I'm deeply humbled by the opportunity to speak for a third
time before the most important legislative body in the world, the U.S.
Congress. (APPLAUSE)

I want to thank you all for being here today.
I know that my speech has been the subject of much controversy. I
deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political. That was
never my intention.

I want to thank you, Democrats and
Republicans, for your common support for Israel, year after year, decade
after decade. (APPLAUSE) I know that no matter on which side of the
aisle you sit, you stand with Israel. (APPLAUSE)

The remarkable
alliance between Israel and the United States has always been above
politics. It must always remain above politics. (APPLAUSE)

Because
America and Israel, we share a common destiny, the destiny of promised
lands that cherish freedom and offer hope. Israel is grateful for the
support of American -- of America's people and of America's presidents,
from Harry Truman to Barack Obama. (APPLAUSE)

We appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel.

Now,
some of that is widely known. (APPLAUSE) Some of that is widely known,
like strengthening security cooperation and intelligence sharing,
opposing anti-Israel resolutions at the U.N.

Some of what the
president has done for Israel is less well- known. I called him in 2010
when we had the Carmel forest fire, and he immediately agreed to respond
to my request for urgent aid.

In 2011, we had our embassy in
Cairo under siege, and again, he provided vital assistance at the
crucial moment. Or his support for more missile interceptors during our
operation last summer when we took on Hamas terrorists. (APPLAUSE)

In each of those moments, I called the president, and he was there.

And
some of what the president has done for Israel might never be known,
because it touches on some of the most sensitive and strategic issues
that arise between an American president and an Israeli prime minister.
But I know it, and I will always be grateful to President Obama for that
support. (APPLAUSE)

And Israel is grateful to you, the American Congress, for your........... Continue Reading »

First of all, the Republican race will be a barroom brawl once it
gets going. Right now, the numerous candidates are organizing their
teams and policy lines and maneuvering for donors. Dollars are votes for
the next several months. So, they're not going after each other yet in
any but the most subtle ways.

While no one has officially
announced, those claiming to be "considering" a run are trying out their
arguments and applause lines. Think of these days as spring training,
despite the frigid temperatures of climate change.

With Hillary
Clinton, who couldn't win the Democrat nomination in 2008, still
deciding when to begin her "campaign" for coronation as the party's 2016
nominee, Republicans once again will draw the most attention for their
spirited primaries and caucuses.

The weekend's Conservative
Political Action Conference provided a peek into the personalities and
themes of the GOP's nascent struggle to avoid losing three consecutive
presidential campaigns, which the party hasn't experienced since 1940.

Themes:
Moderate is out. Conservative is in. Washington is bad. Flyover country
is good. Hillary will have to work harder than she thinks to separate
herself from what's-his-name on the golf course. Plus she's got some
overweight baggage of her own to check, starting with Benghazi,
fomenting the ill-considered Libyan war and disastrous fallout and, as
always with the Clintons, taking in tons of money from anyone. They're
not dead broke, by the way.

Polls, especially straw polls, are
totally meaningless at this point, beyond name recognition. Rand Paul
won the CPAC Straw Poll again, but by considerably less than the
previous two years. Scott Walker's bounce out of Iowa's Freedom Summit
took him within about four points of winning. He was followed by Ted
Cruz, Ben Carson and Jeb Bush. Chris Christie was tenth behind even
Carly Fiornia.

Here are some subjective impressions drawn from a few years' experience pol-watching:

It
was wise for John Boehner and Mitch McConnell to skip this year's
sessions. They drew almost as much criticism as Democrats for not yet
going to the mat over halting Obama's illegal illegal alien ploys.

Despite
the anti-Washington, anti-Congress fervor, Senators Cruz and Paul plow
ahead with their efforts. The lazy D.C. media will go to Capitol Hill
for stories much more often than Madison or Austin, skewing impressions
of the horse race.

Cruz' and Paul's fans are intense, vocal and
dedicated. Cruz is a compelling speaker, strolling the stage without
notes, excoriating RINOs and calling for a clear conservative
revolution.

They each offered different excuses from "We know what he's going to
say" to "I hardly ever attend such speeches" to "It's a tawdry stunt" to
"I am offended." Other than that, these Obama backers are in full
support of Israel, or will be when fundraising time rolls around next
year.

But dozens of Democrats, who have long taken
Jewish money and votes for granted, have announced they will boycott the
address to a joint session of Congress today by Israel's Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the United States' closest Middle Eastern
ally.

He was invited by House Speaker John Boehner to speak on the
issue of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons as Congress considers tougher
sanctions on that state sponsor of terrorism. President Obama opposes
tougher sanctions.

The list of willful absentees includes Vice President Joe Biden, also a Democrat. He's wandering around in Latin America.

Hi everybody. In
America, we believe that a lifetime of hard work and responsibility
should be rewarded with a shot at a secure, dignified retirement. It’s
one of the critical components of middle-class life — and this week, I
took new steps to protect it.

Six years after the crisis that
shook a lot of people’s faith in a secure retirement, our economy is
steadily growing. Last year was the best year for job growth since the
1990s. All told, over the past five years, the private sector has added
nearly 12 million new jobs. And since I took office, the stock market
has more than doubled, replenishing the 401(k)s of millions of families.

But
while we’ve come a long way, we’ve got more work to do to make sure
that our recovery reaches more Americans, not just those at the top.
That’s what middle-class economics is all about—the idea that this
country does best when everyone gets their fair shot, everybody does
their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.

That
last part—making sure everyone plays by the same set of rules—is why we
passed historic Wall Street Reform and a Credit Card Bill of Rights.
It’s why we created a new consumer watchdog agency. And it’s why we’re
taking new action to protect hardworking families’ retirement security.
If you’re working hard and putting away money, you should have the peace
of mind that the financial advice you’re getting is sound and that your
investments are protected.

But right now, there are no rules of
the road. Many financial advisers put their clients’ interest first —
but some financial advisers get backdoor payments and hidden fees in
exchange for steering people into bad investments. All told, bad advice
that results from these conflicts of interest costs middle-class and
working families about $17 billion every year.

This week, I called
on the Department of Labor to change that — to update the rules and
require that retirement advisers put the best interests of their clients
above their own financial interests. Middle-class families cannot
afford to lose their hard earned savings after a lifetime of work. They
deserve to be treated with fairness and respect. And that’s what this
rule would do.

While many financial advisers support these basic
safeguards to prevent abuse, I know some special interests will fight
this with everything they’ve got. But while we welcome different
perspectives and ideas on how to move forward, what I won’t accept is
the notion that there’s nothing we can do to make sure that
hard-working, responsible Americans who scrimp and save can retire with
security and dignity.

We’re going to keep pushing for this rule,
because it’s the right thing to do for our workers and for our country.
The strength of our economy rests on whether hard-working families can
not only share in America’s success, but can also contribute to
America’s success. And that’s what I will never stop fighting for — an
economy where everyone who works hard has the chance to get ahead.
Thanks, and have a great weekend. ####

Good morning, I’m Jim Renacci, and I have the honor of representing the good people of Ohio’s 16th Congressional District.

This
week, the House of Representatives passed a good, bipartisan bill that
could help many middle-class families. I’d like to take a moment to tell
you about it. (Scroll down for video of these remarks.)

First, a story. Like many of you, I was the first
in my family to go to college. Ours was a working class union family so I
had to pay my own way through school. To do that, I worked any number
of jobs: truck driver, mechanic, a road crew, you name it.

As an
accountant, I’ve seen countless parents struggle with putting away money
for their kids’ tuition. You know how it is: you want to make sure they
have it better than you do. But at a time when the cost of just about
everything is going up and incomes are barely moving, that job’s only
gotten harder.

So last month, when President Obama proposed taxing 529 plans, people were understandably outraged.

Why
would we make saving for college even harder? We talk all the time
about rewarding people who work hard and play by the rules — well,
that’s what 529 plans are. They empower families to set up accounts for
their children — right from when they’re born — and then down the line
they can use that money — tax-free — on books, fees, tuition, and
room-and-board.

All told, there are nearly 12 million of these
accounts open in all 50 states. That’s up from 1 million accounts in
2001. Why would we stop that growth? So the government can take even
more of the money we’ve worked so hard to put away?

Thankfully, after a public outcry, the president was forced to drop the idea.

But
we can do more. With all the challenges middle-class families are
facing right now, we need to make it easier — not harder — to save.

That’s why the House acted this week to expand and modernize 529 plans.

Our plan will do a few simple things.

First,
to adapt to the times, we clarify that computers are qualified expenses
under 529 accounts. Second, we remove unnecessary paperwork burdens for
the administrators of these plans.

And third, we allow families
to re-deposit refunds from colleges without taxes or penalties. This
might be useful if something happens and a student has to withdraw early
for an illness. It’s just good peace of mind to have.

I’m pleased
to report that the bill passed with more than 400 votes. Now we just
need President Obama to help us get this done. Together, let’s make sure
that 529 plans will be there for middle-class families for years to
come.

Because we all know that a good education leads to greater
opportunity and a stronger economy. So let’s take this step to make
college more affordable and easier to plan. Thank you for giving me a
few minutes of your time. ####

Our more than 183,000 combined followers on Twitter (click here for that) and on Facebook (then click here to subscribe to that)
know that on weekday afternoons we regularly share a selection of that
evening's late-night jokes before broadcast. We publish a collection of
these and other jokes when the shows are not on hiatus.

Conan:
If agency funding runs out, TSA workers may have to work without pay.
The TSA head says, “That’s OK, we do it to see what your junk looks
like."

Conan: Restaurant chain “Saladworks” files for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. Analysts attribute the failure to it being “a salad
restaurant located in America.”

Fallon: Michelle Obama has banned
boxed macaroni and cheese from the White House. It’s been tough on Joe
Biden. He couldn’t make his wife any jewelry for Valentine’s Day.

Conan:
After a bunch of security breaches, President Obama has appointed a new
head of the Secret Service. The Secret Service director was so excited,
he jumped for joy over the White House fence.

Conan: The new James Bond movie has the oldest ever Bond girl. Which explains why he spends a lot of the movie repeating, “I SAID BOND, JAMES BOND.”

Conan:
A blind Minnesota man got a bionic implant to see his wife for the
first time in 10 years. Then, after she went to bed, he went on the
Internet and looked at porn.

Conan: Nicolas Cage will star in an
Edward Snowden movie. Cage said he’s perfect for the role, since he
knows what it’s like to go into hiding after doing something people
don’t like.

Fallon: A lovely story here. A man in New Jersey has
written one love letter every day to his wife since 1975. Every day. He
signs each letter with the phrase, “I love you, my darling” with the
symbol for infinity. And this is the sweet part: His wife responds to
every single letter with a text message that says “k."

Conan: USDA
approves the first genetically modified apples that don’t turn brown.
The no-browning apples are being called “groundbreaking,”
“revolutionary” and “slightly racist.”

Meyers: Joe Biden was seen
massaging Ashton Carter’s wife as he spoke. How’s the new Defense
Secretary gonna protect us from ISIS if he can’t protect his own wife
from Joe?

Conan: Starbucks has just launched a home delivery service. It's perfect for anyone too lazy to walk one block in any direction.

[UPDATE 9:20p.m. Pacific: Despite last-minute campaign help from his pal President Obama, incumbent Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was
forced into an embarrassing, unexpected and unprecedented reelection runoff Tuesday
when a poorly-funded challenger prevented the incumbent from reaching the 50% victory
threshold.

[Emanuel received about 44% of the votes in a low, wintry turnout while fellow Democrat Jesus Chuy Garcia rode atop a wave of Hispanic support to capture 34%, far more than pre-election polls reported. The two men will now battle for the 21% of voters who opted for three other candidates, now forced out.

[With a tiny fraction of Emanuel's $16 million and 4,600 TV ads, Garcia portrayed himself as an urban progressive underdog up against the moneyed business interests of Emanuel and his pals.

Legend holds that Chicago's mayoral elections are held at this time
of the winter every four years because no one in their right mind would
venture outside to the polls unless they were loyal Democrat machine
voters whose precinct captains were taking attendance.

Mayor Rahm
Emanuel may be the beneficiary of that likely apocryphal story today as
for some reason he seeks a second term atop the nation's third-largest
city with its crumbling infrastructure, high taxes, corruption, poorly
performing schools, unbearable pension costs and gun violence.

The
former machine go-fer, Clinton money collector, House member, pal of
imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and Obama chief of staff faces a
couple of no-names and Cook County Commissioner Jesus Chuy Garcia.

In Chicago's rigged political system that produced Barack Obama and his
sidekick Valerie Jarrett, none of them should have a
snowball's-chance-in-Hawaii of winning. And they don't. However, it is
possible if Hispanics turn out big-time today that Garcia could hold
Emanuel's vote total below the 50%-plus one he needs to avoid a two-man
runoff on April 7.

Then, a stream of Emanuel's notorious profanity
would likely be heard as far away as Springfield. In 2011, Emanuel
avoided a runoff, earning 55% of the vote.

A coronation delay this
time would be embarrassing for the pugnacious 55-year-old Emanuel, the
55th mayor, and the first Jewish one, in the long, sordid political
history of Chicago, which appropriately enough is an Indian word for a
smelly wild onion once found in the area.

Taking a page from
Obama's smearing playbook in 2012, Emanuel has been going after the
under-funded Garcia for months with much of the incumbent's $16 million
cash from a relatively small circle of wealthy donors. Emanuel knows
money, having been Bill Clinton's first finance chair.

And
according to congressional records, the inexperienced Emanuel acquired
$16.2 million during a 30-month stint of deal-making as an investment
banker after leaving the Clinton White House before Clinton named him to
the board of Freddie Mac.

With ISIS, Ukraine, Iran, Boko Haram
and the congressional stalemate over funding his illegal executive
orders all settled, Obama found time last week for some important
business.

He hopped on Air Force One to proclaim a new national
monument on Chicago's South Side, a favorite project of Emanuel's. And,
well, hey, as long as he was in town, Obama stopped by his bud's
campaign HQ to film a last-minute commercial now showing on a
Chicagoland TV near you.

Polls show Emanuel in the mid-forties with Garcia in the twenties and the other two with 7% apiece.

Since Anton Cermak launched the Democrat
machine back in the 1930's, Chicago mayors rarely lose reelections. They
may retire, as Richard M. Daley did in 2011, or they may die, as his
father, Richard J. Daley, did. But upstarts rarely upset, unless as in
1979 there's a massive snowstorm that doesn't get plowed properly and a
feisty female upstart named Jane Byrne prepped to take advantage.

We now know that Barack Obama has very few useful presidential skills. One of them is the guile to appear absolutely, 100% genuinely sincere when he says one thing. And then, just months later, to appear absolutely, 100% genuinely sincere when saying exactly the opposite.

He never declared a red line in Syria; that was someone else. He never said ObamaCare would save Americans $2,500 per household in healthcare costs.

In the 2012 presidential campaign Obama and Joe Biden warned voters that, if elected, Republican Mitt Romney would attack Syria. Even worse, Biden said, Romney threatened to revive the Cold War by not trusting Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

Turns out, it's the Obama-Biden administration that's bombing Syria now. And judging by Obama's denunciations of and economic sanctions on Putin, Republican Mitt Romney was 100% correct to distrust the former KGB officer.

Ending the war in Iraq was the original cornerstone of Obama's ambition for higher office first, the Senate, then the presidency. In 2010, Biden told Larry King that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq the next year would be just one of Obama's "great achievements."

Now, of course, Obama is sending U.S. troops back into Iraq to try stemming the bloody onslaught of ISIS, which he called a JV team just a year ago. Obama maintains terrorism is not a serious homeland threat. Climate change is.

But for some inexplicable reason, Obama's Pentagon spokesmen have
publicly announced an April attack to retake Iraq's second-largest city,
Mosul. Hopefully, ISIS doesn't watch the news.

Now comes a stunning video (Scroll down), capturing Obama's repeated boasts about ending the war in Iraq, followed by.....

Hi, everybody.
At a moment when our businesses are creating jobs at the fastest pace
since the 1990s, we’ve still got to do everything we can to help workers
and businesses succeed in the new economy — one that’s competitive,
connected, and changing every day.

One thing we know for certain
about businesses in the 21st century is that they’ll need to sell more
goods and services Made in America to the rest of the world.

Now,
our businesses already sell goods and services in other countries at
record levels. Our farmers, our factory workers, and our small
businesses are exporting more than ever before — and exporters tend to
pay their workers higher wages.

More small businesses are using
the internet to grow their business by reaching new customers they
couldn’t reach before, too. As an example, nine in ten American small
businesses that use eBay as a platform to sell their products are
exporters — with customers in more than 30 different countries on
average.

But there’s a lot of room for growth. After all, 95% of
the world’s potential customers live outside our borders. Many of them
live in the Asia-Pacific — the world’s fastest-growing region. And as we
speak, China is trying to write the rules for trade in the 21st
century.

That would put our workers and our businesses at a massive disadvantage. We can’t let that happen. We should write those rules.

That’s
why Congress should act on something called “trade promotion
authority.” This is bipartisan legislation that would protect American
workers, and promote American businesses, with strong new trade deals
from Asia to Europe that aren’t just free, but are fair. It would level
the playing field for American workers. It would hold all countries to
the same high labor and environmental standards to which we hold
ourselves.

Now, I’m the first to admit that past trade deals
haven’t always lived up to the hype. And that’s why we’ve successfully
gone after countries that break the rules at our workers’ expense.

But
that doesn’t mean we should close ourselves off from new opportunities,
and sit on the sidelines while other countries write our future for us.
We should seize those opportunities. We should make sure the future is
written by us. And if we do, we won’t just keep creating good new jobs
for decades to come — we’ll make sure that this century is another
all-American century. Thanks, and have a great weekend. ####

Hi,
I'm Senator Ron Johnson, from the great state of Wisconsin. Coming from
a manufacturing background in the private sector, I've done a lot of
relationship building and negotiating.

I wouldn't start those
negotiations or relationships with an argument. Instead, I would spend a
fair amount of time trying to discover all the areas of agreement. That
approach produced a level of trust so that when areas of disagreement
arose, it was far easier finding common ground.

So let me start
today by talking about something we all agree on. We share the same
goal. We all want a prosperous, safe and secure America. We care about
each other, and want every American to have the opportunity to build a
good life for themselves and their family.

If we concentrate on
that shared goal, it should be a whole lot easier finding solutions for
the many challenges facing our great nation. (Scroll down for video of these remarks.)

In
such uncertain times, Americans are hungering for leadership. Most
Americans would agree that we need to enhance the economic and national
security of our country. In fact, as chairman of the Senate Committee on
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, I've made that our
committee's mission.

Majority Leader McConnell, Speaker Boehner,
and the Republicans in Congress want to work with our Democrat
colleagues, and the Obama administration, to provide that leadership.

Our
economy is not as strong as it should be, middle class income is down,
the threat of terrorism is growing, and our borders are not secure. All
of these problems deserve immediate attention. But today, I would like
to address another important threat — a present-day threat to our
economic stability and national security. That threat is the growing
number of attacks against America’s cyber networks.

Recent
cyberattacks against Anthem Healthcare, Sony Pictures, Target, a
Department of Defense Twitter account, and JP Morgan Chase have raised
public awareness of the threat we face.

Two years ago, former NSA
Director Gen. Keith Alexander described cyber-crime against public and
private organizations as ‘the greatest transfer of wealth in human
history.’

It is estimated that cyberattacks cost U.S. businesses
approximately $100 billion per year. And a successful attack against our
electrical grid or industrial control systems that operate other
critical infrastructure, could put American lives, and our very way of
life, at risk.

As a result, I was glad to hear the president
express his willingness to work with Congress on legislation to
address the problem.

I am not a current subscriber and want to register for free membership on Investors.com.

About the Columnist

A veteran foreign and national correspondent, Andrew Malcolm joined Investor's Business Daily October 2011. He formerly served on the L.A. Times Editorial Board and was a Pulitzer finalist in 2004. He is the author of 10 nonfiction books and father of four.

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